Way Back Home

Assalamualaikum, good day dearest! Here is another South Korea movie review.

Title : Way Back Home

Runtime : 130 minutes 

Genre : Family, Drama

Country / Language : South Korea / Korean, France, English

Released year : 2013

Director : Pang Eun Jin

Writer : Yoon Jin Ho, Pang Eun Jin, Lee Jun Hwa

Cast : Jeon Do Yeon, Go Soo

Plot : 

Jung Yeon is married to Jong Bae and had a daughter named Hyerin. They owned a small car repair shop and lived happily. One day, they found out that a friend of Jong Bae had commit suicide. Before the accident, Jong Bae agreed to be a guarantor to his friend's loan. Now that he died, Jong Bae had to pay a large amount of money due to the sky rocket interest rate. They were forced to sold their shop and apartment. The family moved to a smaller one room apartment at a shady neighborhood. Their financial situation got worse. A friend of Jong Bae offers them a job to smuggle gemstones to Paris, France and if they were to get caught, they only had to pay for fine. After some thinking, Jong Bae called his friend to take up the offer but the friend only need woman. Frustrated with the situation, Jong Bae left home for a few days. Feeling desperate, Jung Yeon took up the offer and left a note to her husband saying that she took the job and left Hyerin with a friend. At the Paris airport, Jung Yeon was arrested and learnt that she wasn't transporting gemstones but cocaine. Her struggle to went back to Korea begun.

This movie is based on a true story of a woman named Jang Mi Jung who was arrested on Oct 2004 at Orly Airport in Paris, France. She eventually served prison time in Martinique in Caribbean and finally returned to South Korea on November 2006.

SPOILER ALERT

Okay, this movie was really heart-wrenching, not to the point that I cried but it still is. I feel so sorry for Jung Yeon, she was desperate to make money and having offered of million dollars was so tempting. With the rent, daily necessities and basic needs, she had no choice but accept the offer.

It feels so realistic with her situation. The financial struggles and wrong choice of friend drove her to do something that she never wanted to. As a result, she was arrested and her way to home was full of challenges. Her case was pretty straight-forward (that what they said in the movie) because she just need to prove that she really didn't know what she was carrying. However, with the shitty people at the place called 'embassy' her wait was stretched longer. She was supposed to wait for four months to receive her trials but it keep pushed back. What frustrated me the most was how their embassy didn't provide a translator for her. They literally said that there was no one living at the island without even checking the system. Shit people. Not to mentioned that they didn't submit the paper that prove Jung Yeon's innocence to the court and when the couple called, send letters to them they really ignored those two.

I feels so sad for the family. The husband, Jong Bae, couldn't stop blaming himself for being a useless husband and drove her wife into trouble. His struggle with the government and the detective and having to provide for his family. I was actually glad that he at least had a friend that wasn't bad as the other. At least he had someone to support him. Even the detective who in charge for the case wasn't really cooperative with him at first. He won't trust Jong Bae just because he is a husband of a felony. 

Their struggle gained attention of a producer, they make a documentary out of their struggle and even fly out to the island. By that time, Jung Yeon was released on parole and she was forced to feed herself and even pay for rent. Their reunion was so heart-breaking. After the documentary was aired, it receives big attention by the Korean citizen. They begin spreading the news and posting comments on government website. I can't imagined what would happen to Jung Yeon if they never caught the attention of the producer. And finally after two years of struggle, Jung Yeon was able to went back to her home country. The ending was so heart warming that they finally reunited as a family.

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-thes